44 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



a long list of complaints for which it was 

 then considered an effectual medicine. 



Virgil says, that bees which have strayed 

 may be brought back by the juice of this 

 herb. 



" When you the swarms 'scaped from the hives descry, 

 Like a dark cloud blown through the summer sky, 

 Swimming the boundless ocean of the air, 

 They still to pools and leafy bowers repair : 

 There juice of balm and woodbine sprinkle round, 

 Strike jingling brass and tinkling cymbals sound ; 

 The loved perfume will sudden rest inspire, 

 And they, as usual, to their hives retire. 



Lauderdale. 



Gerard says, " Bawme is much sowen in 

 gardens, and oftentimes it groweth of itself 

 in woods and mountaines, and other wilde 

 places." From this we should have been 

 inclined to consider it a native plant ; but 

 that we have never met with it growing 

 wild. Regnault, and after him Aiton, tell 

 us, that it is a native of the South of Europe, 

 and was first cultivated in this country 

 about the year 1573. We have now eight 

 species of balm, two of which are indige- 

 nous to England, viz. the common Calamint, 

 Melissa calamintha, and the lesser Calamint, 

 Nepeta. 



The old English herbals, as well as those 



